


Break The Chain (Fuck Patterns)

by Godspeed_Cowboy



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Adult Trolls, Adult Trolls (Homestuck), Alien Biology, Alien Culture, Alien Planet, Alien Technology, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Alternian Empire, Blood, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Casteism | Hemophobia (Homestuck), Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Disguise, Friendship, Gen, Hemospectrum, Hiding Medical Issues, Medical Examination, Medical Inaccuracies, Medical Procedures, Minor Violence, Moral Ambiguity, Morally Ambiguous Character, Mutation, Never - Freeform, Nonbinary Character, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Plans, Plans For The Future, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Sylladices, Trolls, Trolls (Homestuck), Tropes, Using troll slang when it benefits me, Violence, You'll never know the protag's agab, and had some funky abilities to boot, everyone is alive including most ancestors for plot reasons, for now, just as god inteded, no beta we die like men, protag is a she/her nonbinary, so eveyone is fine, that they come out different from how normal trolls look, what if mutants were so mutated
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:08:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28547640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Godspeed_Cowboy/pseuds/Godspeed_Cowboy
Summary: In which SBURB/SGRUB never happens, life goes on, several things are changed, and new descendants come into play.Karcin Vantas is soon expected to enlist into the Imperial Military, and she fully intends to do so, and do everything possible to stay there. But, as with all long term plans, things tend to go wrong, and Karcin is no exception to this rule of thumb (and it fucking sucks).
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	1. Prologue

Your name is Karcin Vantas, and you are not a normal troll.

This is a problem for you.

In terms of appearance, you are . . . Strange. Your horns are small, nubby, rounded out and not intimidating in the least. Your lips are weird, the bottom one black, and the top one grey like your skin. Your fangs are . . . Interesting. Interesting in the fact that, much like a fabled rainbow drinker, your canines are long and retractable, both the ones on the bottom and the ones on the top (and more often than not they tend to stay hidden in your gums, making your fangs look much smaller than they are, but they’re too big to have out in the open because they don’t let you close your mouth right, and it makes everything so awkward and complicated, and they always _hurt_ -). You are short, even for a young troll, but you try not to let that stop you, and you really hope that it will go away once you become an adult. Besides, what you lack in height, you make up for in muscle, or at least try to, but that’s besides the current point, back to your tangent about your strangeness. 

There’s also the issue that you have fins for ears and gills on your neck. Obvious traits of a sea dweller. Which, you guess you kind of are, but not really? You can’t swim like one (you’ve never tried to, swim at all that is), you don’t live in water like one (you don’t like water except for when you have to drink it or bathe, and you don’t know if you can even breathe in water, and you are not too keen on testing the theory), and you most certainly aren’t high up on the hemospectrum (oh, ouch, yeah, about that . . .).

Which is another thing that makes you strange.

Your blood, bright as can be, the scorn of Alternia and it’s Galactic Empire, even though it's literally the gogdamn imperial color. 

Candy red, the _mutant_ color.

You’re lucky enough that you’ve managed to pass yourself off as rust, and even some shades of orange on a few occaions. Although not very common, low spectrum sea dwellers do exist, you’ve met like two, and although it did get you a few stares when you left your hive for necessities (you did not leave your hive often, thank gog), you were at least left alone for being a somewhat acceptable anomaly, a freak of nature allowed to stay through misconception and secrecy. 

And sure, it’s gotten some trolls to talk to you, gotten some to be a bit more merciful in the face of something curious and rare, a bit kinder in terms of your culture, but it still didn’t make you anymore privileged.

Lowblood was lowblood, midblood was midblood, and highblood was highblood. That you have always known.

And speaking of which, blood and all that other hierarchy shit with the Empire, that is another problem.

You see, it’s almost time for you to leave the planet.

As a troll of 6 sweeps old, you are going to be officially enlisted into the Empire to train for your career, fight for your species and your ruler, and be happy and content with laying your life on the line everyday if need be.

Four weeks from now, a ship is going to come, carrying adult trolls on it, and you are going to be expected to take a medical exam for your job of choosing and create an official file for yourself, finally registered in adult society. And once that happens, it will be harder to hide from everything and everyone.

This in itself is a pressing matter.

One, your blood will give you away. Two, if that doesn’t do it first, if you don’t manage to get past the adult trolls who will help you make your file and/or help you pick a career, then your sign probably will. Three, if it isn’t those, then it’s probably going to end up being your name.

You’ve done your research, believe it. Your sign, cancer, might be the highest risk for you. You know it’s for the lime bloods, but really, there’s a reason you don’t wear the sign outside of the hive. No one likes it, thinks it’s bad luck, what with all the rumors around it being a “Cursed Sign”. And if some trolls know their history pretty well and pretty thorough, then they know one of two things, or maybe even both.

They know about the Rebellion of The Sufferer, which, after going through a lot of trouble and a lot of hoops in general and most definitely breaking several laws and risking your life, you have verified to be more than just a wriggler’s tale. Or they know about the troll _you_ came from.

The Commander. Cancer, honorary mutant to the Empire, allowed to live solely to teach others about how mutants work, given an extended life span by the current Heiress-soon-to-be-(hopefully)-Empress (whose name you do not know, and who is only allowed to live by the mercy of the current Empress), and a troll who you know will recognize you on the spot by your horns alone if he just so happens to be around. 

You’ve never seen him, no, you’ve never seen any adult troll or any other troll from the main zodiac lines outside of illustrations of old for that matter, but for Gl’bgolyb’s Sake, he’s a mutant! You don't see them everyday, and thanks to him, the Empire has made sure he's the _only_ one so far! And he’s a cancer, like you! No way it’s a coincidence, no fucking way. It would be plain stupid to think otherwise, and you would make yourself look like an idiot trying to deny it all. 

And so, if you are able to recognize him by these things alone, then he _will_ recognize you the very second he sees you, or if he ever gets wind of any of your physical attributes and sign, sea dweller traits and retractable teeth be damned. 

And that’s something you want to avoid.

But, lucky for you, you have a plan to solve all of this. And boy, howdy, is it a damn good plan.

Right now, sitting in your lap, is the very start of your plan. You’ve locked yourself in your respite block to keep Mantis-Dad out (you can hear him outside, pacing in the hall, the old sap is probably worried about you and you don’t blame him for it, you’ll treat him to some food he likes later as an apology), and you’re sitting on your rug, in the middle of the block.

It’s a now-open box that’s in your lap, and it’s a package you’ve been waiting for. You’ve had to go through many shady alleyways and seedy places to get this stuff, and you’ve spent a lot of money to boot, all while disguised. It was risky business, but it was well worth it.

You like to think of it as a “Help-Me-Avoid-Getting-Culled” Package. 

In it, there’s four round, dense, dark bottles all corked up, a bottle of body safe and super strong adhesive, and something wrapped in tissue paper that you have a good idea about.

This box is your key to survival.

You dig through it, reading the labels of everything as you put it into your Sylladex (which is rather bland and simple compared to most you have seen, with it’s fetch modus (wallet) and pale color, but you think it’s the most practical). 

The bottles are filled to the cork with pills, pills that you must take every three days or sooner depending on how fast you want them to take. These pills will change your blood color, make you look like you’re a bit higher up on the spectrum. They were a taboo thing, never spoken about directly, and when they were it was always in hushed voices, and those who used them were either pitied, seen as disgusting, or culled on the spot if they were ever found out. 

(You make sure to peel off the labels, and you think for safer keeping you’re going to transfer them to your jewelry box, the one with the false bottom. You’ll do that later, though.)

The adhesive and the things in tissue are a package deal. In the tissue, there are a bunch of horn attachments. Colored and textured to look like real horns, they were used by trolls aiming to be more intimidating or bigger, or sometimes they were just used to decorate and enunciate their already big horns. They were not as taboo as the pills, and were often bought as gag gifts, but you didn’t want to have to buy them separately so you just had them bought together with the pills.

You’re going to use the pills to raise you up to rust, and you're going to use the attachments and adhesives to make your horns different. 

Then comes the more complicated parts of your plan.

You need a new sign, and a new name. And maybe even choose which gender you’re going to present as.

For the sign, you’re going to have to research and see if there are any signs common amongst rusts. Then, you’re going to need to see which of those common ones have gone “extinct” (AKA, no living ancestor to create more, leaving it up to their descendents to make more, which is hard to do considering how harsh the Alternian way of life is). Then, you’re going to take their last name, maybe even alter it a bit. It wasn’t rare to find that a bloodline name has been altered somewhere down the line, so you could do it no problem.

And if you had trouble doing it with rust, then you could always branch out to yellow and orange. It was not very odd to find that a bloodline itself has mutated down the line, and they were only ever moved up or down a shade or two in common cases, changing to the closest different color in rarer ones. 

As for gender, that is the least of your worries. You play around with it so often enough already, and you don’t really mind it all that much in the first place. You can find it out later.

You toss the box in a corner and stand up.

It’s almost time for dinner, so you suppose you should go out and feed Mantis-Dad. 

You adjust your clothes in the mirror, pull up your sweatpants and fix up your tank top to look a bit more put together, run a hand through your choppy, uneven, very-obviously-self-cut hair to make it look less like a wreck, and boom. Now Mantis-Dad won’t worry so much.

Before you leave, you pause by the door. By it, a calendar hangs. 

The night four weeks from now is marked, circled and underlined and pointed at with arrows in all sorts of ink and graphite and wax, all sorts of colors. You swallow.

You think you’ll start taking your pills _tonight_ , and take them just about every night until that four week mark hits, where you’ll be able to cool it down a bit before you have to pick them back up again.

You look away from the calendar and step out into the hall, ready to be lectured lovingly in the form of chitters and clicks.

You hope your “not-normal” pattern stays behind on this wriggler planet.


	2. Sign Me Up!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ended up being longer than I expected when I wrote it, so I ended up moving some things over to chapter two.
> 
> At the end of the story, there's going to be a lengthy author's note. It will not exactly be necessary for you to read, but it explains things like little trivia bits about jobs, in depth analysis of the mutations that Karcin has, and who she is as a person and why, although I couldn't fit as much as I wanted and it isn't as articulated as I want it to be because word count is a bitch. So, if you have some confusion about what happens in here, feel free to check the notes at the end or ask me a question! I put a lot of work into the world building for this, and I'd be happy to talk about it with you all!
> 
> Also, little thing I wanted to let y'all know about Karcin so you ain't get confused, she uses highblood slang and lowblood slang interchangeably. Example, calling rooms "blocks" but also turning around and using words like "hand" or "eyes" instead of "graspprong" and "ganderbulbs".

Tonight is the night.

You had to take a scuttlebuggy to get to your current point, an unpleasant experience based solely on the fact that everyone else on the vehicle was going where you were, and had a rather depressive and frightened air, and you’re here now, all of you and more. 

You stand in a crowd, a hodgepodge rainbow at the moment, staring up at the large metal building before you. It’s sleek, square, and grey, and it reminds you of a jack-in-the-box. Unsuspecting on the outside, full of surprises on the inside (you don't like that). This place is the official docking point, as you call it, where ships will come and go.

None of you have ever been allowed close to it or inside until now, high tech security keeping you all at bay previously. So you have no clue what goes on beyond the fact that ships come here when they have to. And that makes you nervous, not knowing something as crucial as that. But that’s fine, that’s fine, you’re just here to get enlisted, you don’t need to go snooping around. Especially not here, where you won’t be able to worm your way out if you get caught. For now, you’re going to mind your business.

Plus, you dressed yourself up for this, chose your best looking button up and slacks and dress shoes, and you don’t want to ruin them with any sort of unsightly fluids. And your belt. You most certainly don’t want to ruin your belt. The buckle bears your new sign.

Dissimulator. A circle with a smaller circle in it, and a dot in the middle of that one, with two lines running through it, one horizontal and the other vertical. In a way it reminds you of those things on blasters you’ve seen in movies, those telescopes that the wielder uses to hit it’s target. You made sure this sign did not have any living ancestor, and you made sure there wasn’t another troll with the sign. You think the last one who had this sign died back in the brooding caverns. Hopefully, their spirit doesn't mind you taking their place, and hopefully, they understand you're doing this out of need rather than want.

And then there’s your new “horns” to go with it. Longer, straighter, pointier, and split down the middle, like someone took a wedge and hammered the “V” into them. 

You actually did have to do that, hammer the split in, after looking at the Dissimulator line's pictures and seeing what horns you needed to make. The things you do, man, the things you do to get everything just right.

The adhesive feels weird, like the sensation you get when you paint your nails for the first time in a while. And the attachments feel weird against your natural horns, like you wrapped something tight around them. They feel itchy. You resist the urge to reach up and scratch at them, because you don’t want to ruin your artfully styled hair. It took you _hours_ to get the swoop right, dammit. 

You are startled out of your head as a sudden sound breaks through the murmur of the crowd, a loud, electronic beep that makes you, and several others, cringe. Your fins press hard against your head, trying to get away from the sound. 

And then the double doors of the building open, forcing the crowd to back up.

There’s a troll standing there, or what you can only assume is a troll.

An adult one.

Tall, very tall, and big. A woman, dressed professionally in an elaborate suit with a large overcoat, all black with the edges and details sewn in a deep blue, with her sign (a straight line bracketed by two semicircles, connected to the line by two smaller lines, with a square on top) subtly incorporated into every last inch of the outfit in a tasteful manner. Her skin is dark grey, darker than yours, maybe even black, and tough looking. Her face is long, angular and sharp and pretty in a way you used to want to be when you were fresh out of the grub stage of life. In her eyes, her blood color is reflected by her irises and painted on her lips, that same deep blue like the one on her suit. Her hair is long and straight, pulled back into a ponytail that seems to go all the way down to her thighs. Her horns go straight up and then loopty loop into two big circles outwards before straightening again. They remind you of a roller coaster. 

She taps her foot, her heeled boot picking up an impatient rhythm.

There’s a megaphone in her hand, which she lifts and turns on, shouting into it. The way she talks is slow, dragging things out, creating suspense. 

“Alright, you wrigglers . . . Let's get this show on the road. Reds, line up to my right. Pinks, line up to my left. Everyone else . . . Sort yourselves appropriately between the two.”

The crowd begins to scatter, trying to get to their respective lines. You go to her right (or should you call it your left?), and you find the reds easily from there. It’s a pretty decent line, not too long but not too short either, and you’re somewhere in the middle. But a lot of the other reds look as nervous as you feel. 

You resist the urge to chew on your lips, your gills and fins fluttering a bit with anticipation. You don’t want to mess up the black lip cosmetic you put on the upper one (you read somewhere that ladies were scary in history, and not only do you want to slip into the background, you also want to make sure others don’t try to pull you out of it).

Soon enough, there is order, rows and rows of people, making a gradient from left to right, right to left. 

The adult troll speaks again.

"You may know me as the Recruiter . . . And the trolls I have brought with me are a part of my enlistment crew. Our job here tonight is to sort through all you chumps and see who’s fit to go to the Barracks. The more you cooperate . . . the faster this will go . . . Am I clear?”

A chorus of “yes ma’am” and affirmative hums answers her.

“Good.”

Robots roll out from behind her, several and looking beat up and old, and they wheel themselves to the lines. They eject something from their chest cavities, stab it into the ground, and they roll down between the rows of people, pulling it. Two more pop up, bigger, and one comes to your side, doing the same thing as the others, except it does it on the side where there are no other trolls to separate you from. Once they get close enough, you can see that they’re pulling shiny, metallic blue chain link fences. It sparkles with something green.

They’re caging you in. 

“To keep some order . . . _And_ make sure none of you . . . _Chicken out_ ,” the Recruiter drones boredly, when she sees the young trolls becoming increasingly confused. 

Then she smiles, and it’s something frightening, and suddenly you’re very aware of her teeth, and of her claws, and the tips of her horns, and your fins fold down in a cowardly act, “Don’t touch the fences . . . Won’t be something pretty.”

You break out into a sweat, along with several others, and you're pretty sure the copper blood in the row next to yours is going to piss his pants if he isn’t careful. You don’t blame him. 

Adult trolls are so fucking _scary_ , and you’ve only just seen this one (and wow history was right, ladies _are_ scary, will _you_ ever be that scary? If you keep presenting like one?). And you’re not very excited to meet anymore anytime soon.

You stop that line of thought. You don’t want to think about that actually. _At all_. 

More adult trolls come out much to your dismay (dumbass, she said she brough her crew with her), setting up desks and chairs at the front, carrying stacks of paper and boxes of pens. They seem to have one adult for every basic color. All shades of red will go to the one red-ish-orangey (chilli maybe?) troll up there, all shades of green to the grass colored one, all shades of blue to the dark seafoam blue, and so on.

You try to look casual as the process begins, forcing your fins back up.

The line moves slowly, and it only works up your nerves more. 

As time passes, people find ways to distract themselves, talking with others in their line or chatting with ones from other lines close to them. Some go through their sylladices, playing around with them and whatever they find inside. You open yours twice to make sure you still have all your things (of course you do, the jewelry box with the false bottom and all the goodies in it, the adhesive that you’ve disguised as eye drops, some currency you’ve managed to scrape up, the multipurpose pen given to you by Mantis-Dad, and your strife specibus (a rickety old staff) . . . you should add more cards to your sylladex, you only have like, six). At one point you get dragged into a conversation with a troll with maroon blood and a troll with orange blood so bright it might as well have been neon. You talk about nothing in particular and find it easy to drift from topic to topic while learning just about nothing about each other, although you can’t really say that you contributed much to the conversation, you don’t really do “social” all that much. 

Eventually, though, you make it to the front of the line, the maroon you were talking too having gone up before you and the neon orange having gone up a bit before that.

All together, it takes about two hours to get you to the front of the line.

The adult waves you up, and you do your best to look relaxed, though you’re pretty sure you do a bad job. Out of the corner of your eye, you see the Recruiter pace around, watching everything, as she has been for the past hours. 

You take a seat in front of the adult, a guy, you think. Grey-nearly-black skin like the Recruiter, dressed plainly in a uniform with a sash on it, his sign (a diamond with lines coming off each corner) hanging from a necklace. His hair is short, at the shoulders, and the tips are a faded red. He blows a strand out of his face (long like the Recruiter's, but his eyes are softer, rounder, and they reflect his color as well, and he’s got sideburns you think, under all that hair, and he looks . . . well, he looks _exhausted_ , those bags under his eyes, _wow_ ). His horns are two long, thin “T” shaped things with bands around them, though what the bands are for you couldn’t say.

He looks bored, resting his head on one hand, tapping the table with one of the pens. But he moves, then, grabbing a paper from a short stack next to him, pen at the ready. He pops out a husktop from his sylladex, opens something you can’t see.

Somehow, he’s still scary to you. He reminds you almost of a lounging purrbeast, something that could kill you at any moment but chooses not too because it’s tired. And in this case, it’s that and probably because he legally can’t kill you or any of the other young trolls without getting a legislacerator on his ass for hurting soon-to-be Empire property. 

“Name?” he asks, not looking up.

(Wow, he even _sounds_ tired, and wait, that’s rude, you read that that’s rude to think. Or was it rude to say? Shit, you can’t remember. You’ll just avoid doing both.)

Time to “introduce” yourself.

“Karcin Revolu,” you say, and you're thankful that your voice does not waver or stutter.

“And how do you spell that?”

You tell him how (your first name is not how you spell it, replacing the K with a C and the I with an E, but that's the point, you may have liked your name but you were already pushing it by choosing to keep it _said_ the same), and he never looks up at you while writing it.

“Sign?”

“Dissimulator,” you say.

“Mmm . . . Ah, there it is,” he checks off a box from what looks like a lengthy list, “nice to know the Dissimulator line is still going strong.”

You don’t bother to respond to that. You hope it’s natural. You did a lot of reading about social interaction before this, a lot of reading and watching and writing and observing in general, and you really want your studies to pay off, even if it’s one of your most hated subjects at the moment.

He holds out his hand and makes a grabbing motion, still looking at the paper, “Sylladex?”

You hand the wallet over willingly, and he does not bat an eye as he opens it and looks at what you have inside. He doesn’t seem to care much, because he closes it back up, and slides it back to you, and writes down what you have.

You relax a bit, eased by how casual and care-free he goes about this. He's still a bit scary, but he’s nothing like the Recruiter, who very clearly enjoys spooking the younger generations and lower castes. And you like how he keeps things short, simple. You like short and simple. Much like your fetch modus, it’s practical, straight to the point.

He holds his hand out again, “Graspprongs, please.”

Unsure, you put your hand in his (you should have paid attention when that maroon was up here, shit), and startle when he draws a small knife from his sylladex, hiss when he draws it quickly over the top of your hand. For a second, you panic, an instinctual thing, but your fear practically vanishes when you see your blood. Rust. As it supposedly should be. 

The adult takes a brush out, swipes it over the shallow cut, and then smears your blood into a box on the paper. He then sprays it with something you can only assume is a preservative of some sorts. He hands you a band-aid to cover the cut, and you graciously accept it.

He asks a few more basic questions and you answer, and you wonder if his neck hurts from looking down so long.

“Alright, I think we have you covered on this end, kid. Now, after this, you’re gonna wanna head inside behind me and go down the left hall, there’s gonna be a block at the end where you’ll take your medical exam, and after we go through every other troll here, we’re gonna meet up again to discuss your guys' career choices if you haven't figured it out already.”

You nod, even though he doesn’t see it.

He holds out his hand again, and you think it’s for a hand shake. You get up, ready to leave, and you take it, shake it, be polite as can be.

He looks up at you at last.

 _He_ startles then, “Oh _shit!_ ”

You flinch, your fins folding down. Oh shit indeed. What was wrong? Did you do something wrong?

“Uh,” he says, “sit down, kid, please, cause we are _not_ done here, I'm sorry about that, hold on.”

You sit down, albeit unwillingly and uneasy. What did he notice that made him react like that? Was it your horns? You reach up to check discreetly, hm, no, not your horns. Your lips? You pull a pocket mirror out from your pants pocket. No, not your lips either (would your lips even get you in trouble?). And it can’t be your blood.

He leans to the side, shouts “Recruiter! I need a new form!”

The Recruiter looks at him from where she’s looming over the yellow bloods, “What? Why . . . ? Can’t you just get one from your stack?”

“No, ma’am, I can’t.”

“ _Why_ , though?”

“Come see for yourself, ma’am!”

The Recruiter slowly stalks over, and you start to sweat again. She scares you a bit more than you care to admit. 

She comes to a stop behind the other adult. And slowly, a grin spreads across her face. You’d describe it as “meanly teasing”. 

“Well, well, well . . . What’s this? A sea dwelling rust? Haven’t had one of these in sweeps!”

Oh. Yeah. That. Your fins, your gills. Dumbass, should have remembered that. You relax, but not by much. You can't really relax in the presence of an adult like _her_ yet.

She leans towards you, one hand on the table and one on the other adult’s shoulder, who grunts at the weight.

“Let me get a proper look at you . . . lean a little closer for me, yeah?” she mutters, still smiling. 

You do as she says, fearful. 

She takes a good few minutes taking a proper look at you, making you tilt your head this way and that, having you flare your fins outward, showing her the undersides of your gills (which have thankfully changed along with your blood), takes a hot minute to marvel at the fact that your hands (and feet) aren’t webbed like a regular sea dweller’s, all sorts of those things before she lets you lean back. 

She slaps the other adult on the back, “Well, you sit tight . . . I’ll be right back with a form for your little sea dwelling buddy here.”

The adult grumbles and rubs at his shoulder from where the Recruiter was leaning.

Once she’s gone, he turns his focus back on you.

“Sorry about that, kid. We’ll have this whole issue fixed up real quick for you. Shouldn’t take long.”

“Oh,” you say dumbly, “uh, it’s fine.”

The adult shrugs. The Recruiter returns then, new paper in hand, and doesn’t bother to stick around after that, preferring to go and terrorize the poor lime blood at the front of the green line.

You watch as the older red fills it out, transferring your information. He types something into the husktop, clicks and presses several buttons, and you wonder what it is he’s doing, but you don’t ask. You don’t need to cut your hand again, thank Gog, just move the band-aid.

And then you have to answer a few different questions.

“Do you want your block to have water in it or no?”

“Uh, no, thank you.”

“Mhm. Now, for your block in the Barracks, saltwater or freshwater?”

You make a confused sound, “You just asked me that?”

“Ah, that, I meant for your block _here_. It’s temporary, this whole enlistment deal is gonna take a night or two before we get you all transferred to the ships. When you’re moved to the Barracks, they’ll accommodate for you there. So, saltwater or freshwater?”

You face pinches, “Uh, neither. I don’t live in water.”

“ . . . What do you mean you don’t live in water? You’re a sea dweller.”

“I just. Don’t live in it. Never tried to. Don’t like it. Didn’t know there was a difference, either.”

“So you’ve _never_ lived in water?”

“Yes. Never needed to.”

“And you don’t _like_ water?”

You’re getting a bit frustrated, having to repeat yourself, but you don’t let it show, “Yes.”

“ . . . Uh huh. Ok. Uh, we’ll see what we can do about that. Do you know if there are any chemicals we should avoid using around you, then? Not just for swimming in, by the way, drinking and bathing, too. Sometimes even cleaning.”

“. . .”

“. . .”

“. . .”

“I’ll take that as a _no_ , then.”

“Yeah. Uh, sorry.”

“Don’t worry. According to our records here . . .” he drawls, squinting at his husktop’s screen, “. . . You aren’t the only one who doesn’t know this stuff. There’s been a few others before you who’ve had the same or similar kind of trouble with this. Not just lowbloods either.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Like I said, don’t worry, don’t stress. You’re probably going to find out about all this stuff in the medical exam, okay?”

You nod and this time he does see it. 

“Alright, and I think this is it, for real now, yeah.”

Once again, you shake hands, and this time, you really are allowed to leave. As you do, you feel the Recruiter’s eyes on you. You do not speed walk, but you don’t walk slow either. Part of you wants to give in and book it and get away as fast as you can from the adult and the other more stubborn part of you does not want to give her the satisfaction. 

You walk into the building and go into the left hall (one of the three halls, and you assume the middle is for midbloods and the right is for highbloods).

To which you promptly lean against the cool walls and pretty much collapse in relief.

_Finally_.

That took much longer than you wanted. Maybe you should have bought a wig and a turtle neck now that you think about it, it’s obvious that your sea dweller traits would cause further complications, but it’s too late for that now. You sigh, and push yourself away from the wall. 

No time to dwell on past mistakes, you can do that later, when you make another plan for something, or whatever.

Now you need to take the medical exam.

The hall is long and empty, cold and grey like how it should be. Fluorescent lights guide your way to the door at the end, and the halls that branch from this one do not tempt you for the soul fact that you’re worried about running into another adult. You do _not_ want to meet more than absolutely necessary.

You push the door open, step in, close it, and you are greeted with a long block. You tense at what's going on in it.

The place is bustling, busy. And there’s-there’s screaming going on, somewhere (or everywhere?). Something in you shrivels up unpleasantly at the sights and sounds. 

You really hate this social shit. 

The whole place is white and it smells sterile, although you spot several warmly colored stains on the ground, a few cool colors sprinkled throughout. There’s temporary cubicles set up, for the medical exams you think, and patients and medical experts alike run up and down the block in orderly chaos. For a moment, you’re a bit lost, unsure of what to do, a little bit scared of becoming a part of the chorus of agony that's going on in some of those cubicles for doing something wrong. You probably look weird, just standing there with your hand on the door, shoulders all hunched as you look around with a frown. But you can’t help it, honestly.

__

You are really, actually lost here. Your books and your studies and your research are failing you in this situation.

__

Your saving grace comes in the form of an adult troll dressed in white and mint blue, face covered by a mask and hair covered by a bonnet (their horns must be small like yours, because you can’t see them, and you can’t see a visible sign either).

“Hey, you. Everything alright?” they ask you.

You shrug, “Little bit lost.”

They nod, “Oh, I see. Did you just come in?”

You nod in return.

They turn, wave a hand, “Follow me, please.”

You do as told.

The adult checks into a few cubicles, before muttering “aha!’ and pulling open a curtain. They look at you. You note that their eyes are like the mint blue on their smock.

“Step right in here.”

You step inside.

It’s clean, you notice, no blood stains whatsoever. There’s a table with paper on it, a small desk off to the side with a husktop and a rolling chair in front of it, and there’s boxes with what must be medical supplies. There’s something folded up on the table with the paper on it.

“Make yourself comfortable. There’s a gown for you on the examination plank, change into that. A Medislayer will be with you shortly.”

You don't like the sound of “Medislayer” but you don't tell them that. You just nod. They pull the curtain back over, and once again, you are left by yourself. And for a moment, you just stand there. It’s weird, being in here, seeing the feet pass by through the gap between the curtain and the floor, hearing the screams, and yet being completely separated from it all by flimsy walls and cloth.

You take a deep breath in. 

You can do this. You can get through this. You got through the first bit, now you’re in the middle, and you can do this. 

You take the paper gown off from the “examination plank” to change into, leaving your clothes folded neatly on the end of it. You don’t know if that’s the proper procedure for this, but it seems polite, not leaving your garbs strewn about.

A few minutes pass, and, after no signs of anyone coming in, you decide to sit up on the examination plank, tired of standing.

A few more minutes pass, and finally, there’s a knock against the wall before the curtain opens.

This adult is shorter than the ones you’ve seen so far, and his skin is lighter, though still darker than yours. His hair is cropped short and spiky, and there are no notable features besides his horns, two cubes that sit close to each other, directly on top of his head. A pair of round glasses sit on his face, and his eyes are a pretty emerald shade (do all adults have their blood color in their eyes? When will yours change from black to rust, if you make it? Or will they change to bright red-?).

He’s dressed in white, like every other professional in this place, and much like the one that led you here, his sign is not visible. A long lab coat that he wears buttoned shut, and rubber gloves over his hands (his nails must be filed down).

He takes a seat on the rolling chair, does something complicated with his sylladex, and a clipboard and pen falls into his hands.

You notice that he has the same pen as you. He clicks it a few times. He smiles at you, but you don’t smile back. He doesn’t seem to mind.

“Howdy there, kid, how’re you feeling today?”

You scratch at your neck, “Uh, pretty ok.”

“Ok, ok, they treat you well up front?"

"Um, yeah."

"Nice, nice, nice! Let’s get started, yeah? Stand up for me over here, please.”

Wow. He . . . Isn’t that scary. Sure, you're a little wary, but he’s . . . _Chill_ , as one of the cool trolls would say.

The Medislayer does a series of tests on you, records your weight and height, tests your vision and hearing, scans over your horns quickly to make sure there’s no damage (and thank Gog he doesn’t notice they aren’t real), takes a blood sample, takes a spit sample ("so we have your DNA in the system"), steps out the room when you have to pee in a cup (why do you have to pee in a cup, that’s dumb), has you walk on your tip-toes and your heels, has you test your flexibility, and a few other things. He also takes a look at your fins and your gills, makes sure they’re undamaged, and he puts things on them to see how they react (“saltwater,” you hear him mumble. Looks like you’re saltwater). 

The last thing he looks at is your teeth. Has you open your mouth wide as he puts a stick in it to hold your tongue down.

“. . . What is up with your teeth, kid? Your gums look inflamed as hell around your fangs. And why are they so _sharp_? You file ‘em or something? That’s not a good habit to have, y’know.”

He takes the stick out and looks at you for an answer. You fiddle your hands. You were kind of hoping to keep that to yourself.

“. . . Rainbow Drinker mutation, sir.”

The Medislayer’s eyebrows raise, “Oh. Well, do you know how long your teeth are?”

You shake your head.

He waves a hand, “That’s fine. We can take a measurement here.”

He pulls out a tape measure from his pocket and gets close, unrolls it and holds it next to your mouth.

“Let ‘em loose, kid!”

You let them loose, the fangs, and they throb a bit in pain.

The Medislayer jumps backwards, “Sweet Jegus!”

You jump, and flail internally, unsure of what to do.

“Sir?” you say, the sound coming out a little strange.

You can never talk right with these things out. 

He puts a hand over his chest, “Don’t worry about me, kid, I’d worry about _yourself_ , with chompers like _those_ and all.”

He gets closer again, takes measurements for all four, and lets out a low whistle.

“Damn. Four inches for the ones on bottom, five for the ones on top. Not the biggest we’ve got on record, but they sure are the biggest _I’ve_ seen. Do they hurt often? Like, you got meh days where it’s bearable and bad days where it’s just plain awful to deal with?”

You nod. 

"Do they bleed sometimes, too?"

You nod again. He nods back.

“Not surprising. Chronic pains and random bleeding tend to follow this mutation, recorded in just about everyone that’s got these, save for actual Rainbow Drinkers, but we hardly come across those anymore.”

He rolls over to the clipboard, which has been resting on the table.

“I’m gonna give you something for that so you won’t have to worry about your aches and pains when you start basic training, just gotta mark it down on here real quick. You can put _those_ away for now.”

You bring them back into your gums.

Before the Medislayer can write anything down, however, there’s a loud sound right outside the cubicle. You can see there’s someone on the ground struggling. And you can hear them screaming. Loudly.

“NO! NO! PLEASE! I’M NOT DEFECTIVE, I SWEAR! I CAN WORK FINE WITHOUT AN ARM, PLEASE, LET ME GO, I PROMISE I CAN WORK, I’LL DO ANYTHING! PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, I DON’T WANNA DIE! NO! HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME! ANYONE!”

You want to cover your ears, but you can’t. You find yourself frozen. You can’t tell if it’s from shock or fear. Maybe both.

The Medislayer sighs and puts the clipboard down.

From his sylladex, he pulls out a wicked looking knife. You swallow. He looks at you and smiles kindly.

"Hey, don't you worry about this, yeah? I'll be right back. Just gotta go help whatever's goin' on out there real quick." 

You think you have an idea what the “Slayer” part stands for now, where it comes in and all that.

“GET AWAY FROM ME! I’LL-I'LL BITE YOU, YEAH, BITE YOU, I’LL DO IT, I DON’T GIVE A SHIT IF YOU’RE A HIGHBLOOD OR-OR A MIDBLOOD OR WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU ARE! GET AWAY! LET ME GO! I’LL KILL YOU, I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!”

He steps outside, and there’s more struggling, more screaming, and grunting, and yelping, just _fighting_ in general, and then there’s the sound of something crunching, and then something wet. The noise and the movement stop abruptly.

Someone peaks their head in from the curtain. It’s not the Medislayer that was with you. It’s a troll dressed like the one that led you here, but their eyes are a soft violet.

“A Medislayer will be with you shortly,” they say, monotone.

You don’t get the chance to ask about where the last one went, the troll leaving before you find your voice at last.

Slowly, you look over to the curtain, and down.

A puddle of emerald green and daisy yellow seeps slowly under it towards you.

You snap your head forward, looking away as fast as you can, and you try to stop your heart from beating out of your chest.

You don’t think you want to know what happened to the last one. You _really_ don’t want to think about it, not now, not ever.

(You have an idea of what happened anyways. You wish you didn’t. You should stop thinking about it.)

Someone opens the curtain and steps in, and you look towards them.

You catch a glimpse of the hall behind them.

There’s a body on the ground, colored in yellow and missing an arm, dressed in a gown like you. Their eyes are gouged out and there's a cut across their throat, and it makes you feel sick, very sick.

You don't see any other body, but you do see the smearing trail of emerald left behind.

The curtain closes, and you force yourself to look at the new comer. 

A woman with two crescents for horns, her hair in a low bun, a soft face with light cosmetics, and a scar running across one eye. Her skin is darker than the last Medislayer’s, but still lighter than the older red and the Recruiter’s. There’s an air around her that makes you feel like she isn’t one to waste time or listen to things that aren’t of importance. Prim and proper.

She’s in a lab coat, and you can’t see her sign. Her eyes are purple, closer to the blue end but not so blue that you can’t tell it’s purple.

“Did you complete the tests?” she asks, and she says it in a voice that sounds professional, cold, completely different to the last one that looked over you.

You nod and point at the clipboard.

She walks over, picks it up, and wrinkles her nose, looks you up and down, looks back at the board. She doesn’t seem too pleased by your presence. 

She takes a pen out and marks something down on it.

She holds it with one hand, lets it fall to her side, and the paper is outwards.

On the bottom of the paper, the box labeled “No Mutations” is crossed.

“Get dressed,” she says, brisk, and then she’s gone, the curtain falling shut once more, and once again you are alone.

Well then. Looks like you wouldn’t be getting anything prescribed to you after all. And you’d get to keep your teeth a secret to boot.

(You push your disappointment down. You don't have the right to feel that way about this. Sure, it would have been nice to have something to lessen the pains you get in your jaws, and maybe even something to keep them from bleeding, but sadly, that doesn’t seem to be in the works for you, that isn't how it is, or how it's going to be. You need to remember that this is how you’re going to be treated for the rest of your life, that as a rust, you are the lowest of the low, in an acceptable fashion, and they won't waste supplies on you. Besides, you've dealt with it for so long already. You can just chew ice if it hurts again or something, swallow the blood and just not open your mouth until the episode passes.)

You put your clothes back on and step outside the cubicle. The bodies are gone, and so is all the blood. Damn, they work quick around here.

(You wipe your mouth gently, trying to get rid of any evidence that you threw up in the trashcan inside while still keeping your cosmetics on.)

The Medislayer with the purple eyes is standing there.

She looks you over again, and you can tell by the look in her eyes that she’s disgusted by you.

Rude. You should lend her one of your books on social interactions if she wants to be so pissy (no, wait, now _you’re_ being rude . . . You kind of don’t care but you also don’t want to get your ass culled right after you just passed the exam.).

“Unfortunately, we are a bit understaffed at the moment. I'll be leading you to your temporary quarters. Follow me,” she says, and she turns, walks in the opposite direction you came in from, not bothering to see if you're following.

You scramble to do so, and you barely manage to catch up to her before you lose her in the crowd.

She walks _fast_.

The further you go, the more the body traffic begins to thin, and before you know it, there’s hardly anyone at all.

But there are a lot more bloodstains on this end. Yikes.

She walks through a door and you run to get through it before it closes. You manage, just barely. 

Instead of a hall, there are stairs, which she walks up. You follow.

Three flights of stairs and a few halls later, she opens another door.

It leads to a short corridor lined with other doors, and the color theme is red, red, red. It’s a bit jarring, the transition from the cool greys and whites you’ve been seeing to this. 

She walks inside, and once again you follow, and she stops at the fifth door to the left, and opens it.

The adult dips her head towards the door, a silent demand for you to step in.

You walk inside. It’s pretty bland. One light overhead, the block is grey, which doesn’t make sense to you considering the corridor's color scheme. It’s small, basic. A desk on one side with a chair. A simple recuperacoon on the other, plainly colored like the rest of everything in here. On the wall in front of you, there’s a faded poster, propaganda telling you to smile while you work.

The door closes without so much as a goodbye from the adult, and the sound makes you jump.

You wish you had the balls to throw something at her, but you don’t, and you feel like she wouldn’t hesitate to murder your ass right here, right now if you chose to disrespect her. 

You sigh. Well then.

You think that went as well as it could.

You're in the final stretch now. And hopefully, you'll make it out alive. Hopefully, your ass won't get caught last second.

All you can _do_ is hope.

Hope is all you have left now.

(You pray to whatever the hell is listening to _please_ let you get out of this fucking thing _alive_.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Dissimulator is latin for "disguise"
> 
> -Medislayers are doctors and nurses with a license to kill at will. Their job is to eliminate any trolls they deem "defected" (trolls with physical disabilities gained before enlistment, trolls with pressing health issues like cancer or AIDS, trolls with neurological disorders that impair their performance etc). It is up to each Medislayer individually to decide if a troll is actually defected or not, each having their own standards. Should their judgment fail, they are culled, as failure to properly deduct a troll's capabilities will be seen as a crime. 
> 
> -The Sea Dweller Mutation is a mutation that affects lower castes, giving them qualities of sea dwelling trolls. It is theorized that this mutation happens to trolls who live near water, have signs with aquatic qualities even if they are not considered water signs, or whose batch of slurry was mixed with someone's of sea dwelling descent. Traits can vary from troll to troll, there's hardly ever two with the same qualities. This is not seen as a mutation under the Empire, and the reason why is because sea dwelling highbloods see it as a form of evolution. They believe that as the "superior" subspecies, this is one step closer to becoming the perfect alien race, and they hope that one day the mutation is wide spread. For now, however, it is rare. Like being albino. There are a few health problems associated with this mutation, like random pains around the neck and ears, infections in gills or under scales, painful transitions from water breathing to air breathing and vice versa, and more, as it is still being actively documented and invested in by the Empire. It is unknown if Karcin suffers from these.
> 
> -The Lip Mutation is a mutation that can affect any troll of any caste. It happens at random, and there is no known direct cause. The mutation causes a troll to have one black lip and one grey lip. This is acknowledged as some sort of mutation, but it is nothing too phenomenal, nor is it outlawed. It's like a person with freckles. There are no recorded health problems associated with it, and it is classified as something completely harmless. Karcin is noted to use this to her advantage on several occasions, sometimes making her top lip black and sometimes making her bottom lip grey to disguise herself.
> 
> -The Rainbow Drinker Mutation is a mutation that is not well documented, but acknowledged nonetheless, and actively trying to be stopped. This is rarer than the Sea Dweller Mutation, and it is unknown which castes it affects the most, and there is no known direct cause. This mutation gives a troll the ability to extend and retract their fangs at will, and size varies. The retractable teeth are noted to be extremely sharp no matter the caste. The health complications that follow this mutation are severe, which is why it is trying to be stopped. Because the troll affected by it is usually not a Rainbow Drinker themselves, their body is not accustomed to it. They suffer from chronic pain in the jaws or gums, are at a high risk of oral infection if they don't care for them right, and risk breaking their jaws from the weight of the teeth or pulling on the teeth too hard. Trolls can have trouble speaking when their teeth are extended, and if they are not careful, they can cut themselves. If kept in the gums too long, they might ache worse than usual or bleed. They can grow over time, and past documentations have shown that if they grow long enough, they can impale a troll's eyes/head or neck/chest. Some trolls believe that this mutation can help them seem intimidating, powerful, or fashionable, which is why some become Medically Mutated with it. This is also why progress stopping it is slow, because of the divided opinions on whether or not the wellness of trolls affected by it are worth it. Karcin suffers from the chronic pain and occasional bleeding the most.
> 
> -Karcin is extremely antisocial and bad at talking to/being around other trolls, the reason being due to extreme self-isolation for several years. It is also why she plans so much. She believes that in order to survive, she must be prepared. She fears not being able to know everything, just in case a plan goes bad, and has risked her life to get some of the information that she has. It is shown that she gets annoyed or agitated when she doesn't have all the information she deems necessary. She is unaware that some information she holds is extremely valuable, as in people would pay for this stuff. There is no point, however, as she usually tries to stay away from other trolls. She learns all of her social skills from books and movies, and calls her observations of others' behaviors her "studies". She is, however, usually seen as awkward or stiff for trying to emulate them, though most trolls do not mind, and simply think that she is just one of those people.


	3. Hey Bestie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all, I'm back at it again! This is more of a lighthearted chapter for funsies, although it does introduce someone new while also progressing the story a bit further along! Also, I have a song for this story now!
> 
> Bitter Choco Decoration, and turn on subtitles! One could even say that it's Karcin's assigned theme song. 
> 
> Also, some things to note, I went back to the prologue and first chapter and changed some stuff. Example, Karkat is now just known as The Commander, and Glowfire is now just known as The Recruiter. I've altered troll culture a bit, so now titles are no longer exclusive to just eight letters/characters. So yeah, I suggest going back and rereading the first two parts because even I forgot what I might've changed outside of big stuff like the names.

You realize a mistake about two hours into your stay, something that makes you pause your game of Slithery Scale-Beast Eating Mutants and sit there for a moment from where you’re curled over the desk.

You did not bring any extra clothes with you. Which is bad, considering you are very much in the know how of not wearing clothes for nights in a row. You may have been isolated, but even you did not enjoy doing such a thing, wearing the same thing for nights on end when you did have a choice to change. Plus, you would be seen in public, by the other recruits, by more adults, and surely, some of them would notice, correct? If the damn smell didn’t hit them first.

Wait, how long would it take for them to smell bad? Oh Gog, do they smell bad _now_? Probably not, but the thought of them just smelling bad after a while is a big _Oh No_ in bright letters in and over your head.

This is not something you planned for, and you are regretting it. It’s not even that relevant to your plan, but you are a stickler for first impressions going right, and if you smell bad and show up in the same, will-be-wrinkly-by-then clothes, then you don’t think your impression will be all too good to many. 

You put your head in your hands and groan loudly.

Gog fucking dammit.

Look, you didn’t know you’d be staying for a day or two fully, so really, you can’t blame yourself, ok? At least, that’s what Mantis-Dad would say to you.

. . . But . . . Mantis-Dad isn’t here right now, and won’t be ever again, so . . .

Yeah, you have the right to call yourself a bit of a fucking dumbass for this shit. Should have known it’d take a bit to get through every troll of age on the planet, what with your sector being one of like, what, 43 now? 45? More than that? You can’t remember. But you know it’s one of many, and there are many trolls in those many sectors. You could pull some eloquent metaphorical bullshit out of your ass right now about you being just a drop of water in the ever reaching, ever sprawling purple seas of the Alternian coast, but really you feel more like a swimming scale-beast being shoved into a net with thousands of other swimming scale-beasts, ready to be sent to the fucking slaughter house for the fucking enjoyment of the fucking bourgeoisie of your race, who will consume your feeble, cooked corpse from a platter of gold no doubt, with matching gold utensils.

Ahem. Uh. Pardon your fucking language on that little tangent, or whatever.

So yeah. It’s gonna be a few.

You’ll have to find some clothes before daytime comes around, which it wouldn’t be coming for a good while, it’s like what, 10 now? You got here at like 7 or 8? So you’ve got like 10, maybe 12, hours, depending on who goes to bed the latest possible. 

Well then. You can work with that, you can work with that very well. 

So you best get to work.

You stand up out of the chair, shut your husktop (man, all your game progress is gonna be lost . . . man . . ), and brush off the nonexistent dirt and dust from your knees. You make sure you have everything, and walk to the door, pulling it open.

The hall still looks the same, you think, as you lean forward and turn your head left and right, although now you can hear some noise, the corridor no longer deathly silent. 

You can hear others talking in their blocks, probably over video chat or probably with someone they invited, hear people goofing around one way or another (there’s a crashing-sparking sound from next door and a high pitched “Shit! Where’s the water!?” oh that poor sap), and in the hall outside of this one, you can hear people walking _and_ talking.

You step into the hall, close the door, and lean against it.

Hm. Where should you start?

Well, your safest bet would be to ask one of the other lowbloods, either here in your red hall or in another one. Your more logical bet would be to find an adult and ask about there being some sort of spare uniform or other.

But the question is, which one do you choose? Because both have their downsides, that’s for sure.

On one hand, the first option is safe, yes, but! You don’t know anyone. Not to mention, most might be hostile towards, considering how aggressive your culture is and how this is the military. And if they aren’t hostile, then they’ll be soft, cowardly, and they might get culled before you have the chance to give them their clothes back. And you really don’t know how you feel about owning dead people’s things yet, and the action would be like pillaging a corpse before it’s _actually_ a corpse, and you’ll have to live with the knowledge that you’d probably be the last person to know who they were and what they said to you. And you’re not sure they would want their last words to be “You’re welcome,” or “No problem.”

The second option is more logical, and will guarantee you don’t mess up first impressions with your peers. But! They are . . . Adults. They’re older, meaning they’re already calloused and grouchy and stingy as they should be, meaning they have more experience from the world, meaning they have more knowledge about certain subjects, meaning they would know just how to mess with you if they wanted to. You don’t doubt that they _wouldn’t_ , there’s an awfully apparent pattern of the adults not caring about you and the other younger trolls, preferring to either ignore you all, tolerate you all, or straight up terrorize you all simply for the hell of it.

(Assholes- no, wait, that’s _rude_ . . . But this _is your_ head . . . so . . . _Assholes_. _Ha_.)

But . . . Some adults were . . . Nice, you suppose, or, well, as nice as one can be when they’re a troll . . . So . . . Uh.

Ok. Second option it is?

Man, you need to work on sounding more sure when you forget something.

(You hate forgetting stuff, especially when it has to do with your plan, and you hate having to improvise. It’s not your strong suit.)

You walk to the door separating you from the hustle and bustle outside, pull the handle, and . . .

And you pull it again. 

And again. 

And . . . Again.

Oh, _motherfucker_ , is this thing _locked_?

You pull it again one more time to make sure and, yep, this bitch is absolutely, positivley locked. You’re pretty sure you can hear someone snickering out in the hall, laughing at the poor little troll on the other side, who just wants to get some gogdamn clothes. 

Asshole!

You growl, and you’re briefly tempted to kick the door, but you don’t because the sudden fear of an adult ripping it open to rip off your head grabs you by the throat, climbs up into your mind, and slams your brain against the insides of your skull, warning you not to.

You turn around, cross your arms, and look left, right.

Looks like you’ll have to talk to someone here after all.

You take a deep breath in and let it out slow. 

This is fine. All you have to do is keep it short and professional and straightforward. Easy as pie for you.

Just as you're about to take a step forward, the door to your right opens, and you look towards it.

A troll with short, fluffy black hair and ram horns stares at you. A guy, you think, and his eyes are wide, nose a little crooked, and lips thin (the top lip is black, does he have the lip mutation, too?). His clothes are simple, a rust red marshmallow looking jacket (or is it one of those windbreakers?), skinny jeans, and shoes too chunky to be functional. You can’t see any sign on him but . . . There is something about him that seems so familiar to you that it makes you a little mad that you can’t remember what it is he reminds you of.

He tilts his head at you. You blink a couple times.

“Uh,” you say, raise your hand warily, “hi?”

And then the oddest thing happens.

He _smiles_ at you. At _you_.

He leans against the door, posing with an arm above his head and the other on his hip, legs crossed over each other, probably trying to look cool to you, “Well, hello to you, too, babe!”

His voice is peppy, and almost painfully average with a weird accent thrown over it that he clearly hasn’t practiced enough yet and- Hey wait.

Sorry, what did he just call you?

You don’t have time to think about it as he shoves the hand from his hip towards you, “What’s a girl like you doing out in a hall like this?”

He laughs at what you assume he thought was his own clever joke/quip, and you recoil just a bit. But you don’t ignore his hand, taking it in yours carefully. Your carefulness is thrown out the window when he shakes it hard enough to shake your whole body as an after effect of his ridiculously aggressive and enthusiastic handshake. When you let go, your arm aches a bit. 

You try to discreetly cradle it close as you answer, not wanting to leave him hanging while also kind of wanting to get away but not wanting to seem rude.

“Just trying to find a way out of this hall. Need to find something.”

He straightens up, crossing his arms, and all the while he’s still smiling.

“Well, the door’s over there, isn’t it? You tried getting out though there, babe?”

Oh. Oh hell no. You know that tone, and he just called you that name again. It’s happened to you a few times before, and you still don’t have a good grasp on it, but you think you have an idea of what he’s trying to convey.

He’s mocking you. He's actually mocking you, isn't he?

He’s a fucking _fool, isn’t he_?

Your face falls into one of annoyance, hoping to get the message across, “Door’s locked. And don’t call me “babe.””

His face twitches a bit, but he recovers soon enough.

“Ah, well, uh, what should I call you then? Haha!”

You shift on your legs, “Karcin.”

He snaps his fingers, ‘“Oh! Karcin! Like that name, suits you good! Name’s Bravat!”

_Fool suits you better_ , you think, but you don’t say that outloud. Instead, you hum, acknowledging.

It’s awkwardly silent for a moment or two before Bravat coughs into his hand.

“So,” he says, “what is it you're looking for exactly? Ablution-block or something? ‘Cause that’s down the hall over there, that’s where I’m headed.”

He tilts his head to the other end of the hall. You shake your head.

“Looking for an adult.”

“An _adult_? What do you need an _adult_ for?”

You contemplate on if you should tell him or not, “Kind of embarrassing.”

He waves his hand, “Pssh, I’m sure it ain’t that bad.”

You shrug, deciding that it won’t matter in the end, mostly because he seems like the type to be culled right off the bat. Probably will be when you all get transferred to the ships.

“I need extra clothes. Didn’t think far ahead enough, slipped my mind that we’d be here for a while.”

He blinks, “That’s all?”

You raise a brow, “Yes?”

And to your surprise, he _laughs_. Your brow furrows. 

“What? What’s so funny?” you ask.

Your question only seems to spur his fit on further, and you watch as Bravat folds in over himself, hand on the doorframe to try and gain some sense of stability. 

After a minute, you are fed up with it.

“Nevermind. Have a good evening. Goodbye . . .” then you mutter quietly, “Fool . . .”

And when you’re a good few steps away, he scrambles to get back up, and yelps, “Wait! Wait! Hey, Karcin, wait!”

You stop, sigh, put your hands on your hips. You’ve had just about enough of this Bravat guy.

He runs over to you, skidding to a stop a couple steps ahead, hands held out in front.

He begins to gesture as he talks, waving his hands this way and that.

“Ok, ok, sorry for laughing, but! I can help you!”

You squint, “How?”

“Well, we got a couple options! One, you can borrow some of my clothes-”

“Not happening. Apologies.”

He shrugs, “Understandable. Which brings us to option two! I go to the ablution-block, and after that we help you find some clothes?”

You hum, “Nice. One thing, though.”

“Yeah?”

“Why are you needed in option two?”

Bravat makes a face that reminds you of when you stub your toe. Or when you haven’t drank enough water and your kidneys hurt randomly. Just pained in general.

Did you say something wrong? Gog, you kind of hope so, maybe that will get this fool to leave you alone. But, then again, you _did_ mean it as a genuine question. 

“W-Well, I’m not, but-!”

“Hm. I see. Have a good evening. _Goodbye_.”

You brush past him, listening to him flail and splutter. 

“Now- Hey- Hold on just a minute!”

Bravat runs in front of you again, nearly tripping in the process. Once again, he holds his hands out, almost like he’s trying to tame a muscle-beast, you can already imagine him saying “Woah, girl!”

You wait for him to get his brains together, although you’re already very tired of entertaining him. He is a tiring type to be around, all expressive and hyper, mood swings up the wazoo, volume to the max, and extroverted attitude out the ass. 

“Ok. Ok. So, you said it yourself, you need some clothes, and you need a reason as to why I’m needed in number two?”

“Mhm.”

“Well, easy! Uh, well, people will be hostile, y'know? Aaand what if you need someone to get you out of some trouble if something happens? That’s where I can come in!”

Oh, so he wants to play that game. Strong protecting the weak, hm? Well, he does have a point, someone just might try to bite you dead for a mishap. 

Hm. Very well then.

He’ll do good for a diversion, make a great body shield for you. All you have to do is make sure you don’t _see_ him die, and you’ll be good. You wouldn’t be the one killing him, after all, he brought this upon himself.

(Or is that just your logical reasoning . . .? . . . What are your actual feelings about this . . .?)

“Ok. Deal,” you say.

“Aw, c’mon, I- Wait, really?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

He physically perks up like a flower in the sunlight. Actually, scratch that, motherfucker has a smile like the actual fucking sun. Gogdamn, now _those_ are some pearly whites if you’ve ever seen them. Bravat could be the fucking role model of aspiring Dentiso-rcerers. Or maybe their dream patient, and instead he’s a role model for all the little grubs who want to pass their dental exams. 

Basically what you’re saying is that he’s a bright ass dude. He reminds you of an obnoxious little bark-beast who you’d adore for the fact of being obnoxious, except you aren’t exactly feeling as endeared to his troll self as you are to his bark-beast self. Man, you wish he was a bark-beast at this point, but whatever.

Bravat bounces on his heels and you raise your brows at him.

“. . . So are you going to go and . . .?”

He freezes, “Oh fuck. Uh, pardon, be right back!”

You watch him hobble down the hall at an impressive speed for someone who must have been holding in his piss for too long. Damn, could put his ass in the annual Olympics with speeds like that, imagine how fast he is when he doesn’t have to pee.

You choose to follow him, waiting outside the ablution-block, leaning against the wall, hands stuffed in your pockets. A couple other trolls walk out of their blocks, and glance curiously at you, though they leave you alone, deciding you aren’t worth the time of night, and you watch as they walk into other trolls’ blocks. Damn, you didn’t know rusts were this sociable. Or, well, had that many allies? Friends? Well, friend is the same as enemy, you’ve heard, so allies, yeah. Oh, yikes, will you have to be sociable like that? Do you even _want_ allies?

(Kind of. No, wait, you can’t have that. Having allies means they could turn on you at any point in time. Maybe even reveal your secret if you ever showed them (Not like you would, you aren’t that foolish). Does that make them the same as friends and enemies then? For you at least?)

Your train of thought is cut off when the door to the ablution-block opens. Bravet walks out, and it’s clear that he doesn’t notice you at first because he walks a bit ahead of you, looking around with a confused face, a questioning sound leaving him.

“Hey,” you say.

And you watch as Bravat jumps a good foot off the ground.

You snort, and immediately stifle it with an awkward cough into your hand. It’s rude to laugh at that.

He puts a hand on his chest, “Jegus, you scared the shit out of me!”

You shrug. You’re not really sorry for the most part.

Bravat clears his throat, “Ah, not that I’m normally scared so easily. You just, uh, caught me off guard!”

You roll your eyes, but you let him believe what he wants. 

“Ready?” you ask, already walking up to the first door.

“Oh! Yeah, yeah, _so_ ready!”

This was a bad idea, you decide, as the eighteenth and final door closes in your face. 

You don’t understand what you did wrong! All you did was knock on their doors, and said words for word, straight forward and polite, “Can I borrow some of your clothes?” and they just shut it in your face! And this has happened every time! You don’t get it! You’re being polite, not beating around the bush, so what gives? What social cue are you missing?

What's worse, you're messing up your first impression on these people! They're going to know you as the Troll Beggar Girl who asked for clothes like some idiot! It's embarrassing! Humiliating! 

It makes you mad, only a little bit of course, but still mad. man, you just-just-!

You feel like you’re going to blow a gasket! It feels like you’re a screaming little teapot except the spout is blocked and you can’t get anything out and you’re going to fucking explode and spill all your shitty little teapot guts and boiling water blood everywhere! Spill blistering hot liquid on whoever the poor bastard standing in the kitchen is!

Ok, so maybe you’re a little bit more mad than you’d like to let on. But, hey, at least you’re pretty good at hiding it you guess. 

Bravat stands off to the side, sweating, but still smiling. 

“Ah . . .” he says, “that-that could have gone . . . Better?”

You sigh, “Yeah. Yeah, it could have.”

He cringes, “Uh, maybe you should, um, tone down your psionics or something? What, you have chucklevoodoos? Just-Just tune whatever psychic powers you got down a little . . . Please?”

You pause, turn to him, “. . . I don’t have anything psionics or chucklevoodoos. Don’t have any psychic stuff.”

“. . . You don’t?”

“No. Would know if I did.”

He wilts, “Ah so you’re just . . . Intimidating like that. One of those trolls who, um, just gets an air around them when they’re, uh, angry. Got it. Got it.”

You blink, “Is it that obvious?”

“. . . Do you want me to be honest?”

You lift one brow, “Yes? What else would I expect?”

“Uh- Nevermind, but, uh, yeah, a little obvious.”

Oh. Well then. Maybe you’re not as good as you thought you were. That’s embarrassing, isn’t it? You should work on that.

You take the pen out from your sylladex, and begin to click it, taking your frustrations out on the poor thing as you start to pace, trying to think of a new plan. You mumble to yourself, getting lost in your own little world. Bravat seems to calm down with every click of the pen, as though his wariness went away with your angriness. Ah, this pen, works wonders, doesn’t it? Thank Mantis-Dad for that one, everyone, this pen keeps you from raging on the crowds like a subjugglator in the church doing ritual sacrifice, or whatever murderous activity it is they get up to these days.

Just as you think you’ve finally got it, something thuds to your right and Bravat makes a sound of both annoyance and confusion. You look to him. 

On the floor in front of him is a chest, green wood and black metal, and his sylladex is out, a light brown. The sylladex disappears as soon as you look at it, and you can tell by his face that he’s trying to pull it out again, but can’t, for whatever reason.

“Come on, come on, come on . . .! Dammit!”

You squint at him, “Something wrong?”

He looks at you, “Uh, a little. Sorry about that, this is just how my sylladex works.”

“Something wrong with it?”

“Nah, just spirits yanking my chain.”

You blink, a little surprised, “Spirits?”

“Yeah. I have a “Ouija” sylladex. A little hand-me-down from my ancestor or whatever, given to me by my lusus.”

“How does it work?”

He gets a little bit of a smug face, “Oh, well, you see, the spirits work it for me. They decide what comes out and when most of the time, and when I can open it.”

“. . . Ghosts control your sylladex.”

“Yep! Pretty cool, right?”

You honestly want to say it sounds more like a grub lock, but instead you give a polite little smile and nod, “Very cool.”

It sounds ridiculous when you agree with it. Plus, the concept itself sounds complicated, and you want nothing to do with that.

You look at the chest.

“What’s that?” you ask.

Bravat waves a hand, “My clothes. Don’t worry, I’ll get them out of your way and-”

You space out as he talks, because suddenly it hits you. Well, change of plans, huh?

“-finding you some clo-”

“Is your offer still open?”

Bravat blinks, “What?”

“Your offer about the clothes. Is it still open?”

“But I thought you didn’t want them?”

You put on the prettiest, smallest smile you can, and shrug, “Change of plans.”

That seems to be enough of an answer for him. He rushes to open the chest, crouching in front of it and punching in some numbers. It opens with a click and a beep, and he moves out of the way, gesturing for you to take a look in the box.

You sift through it, a little surprised at the color range. The box is a rainbow myriad mixed with black, and it’s kind of amusing. You hold up a garishly colored purple sock, and he chuckles, apparently embarrassed, based on how he smiles, blushes, looks away. 

“I used to be a bit of a goth poser. A lot of this stuff is left over from those days, haha.”

Interesting, but also you did not need to know that. You just roll your eyes in response and hope it works as an answer. 

By the time you’re done, you have two sets of clothes, and it doesn’t even seem to diminish the pile in the chest.

You picked out simple things, nothing too brightly or wildly colored or weird looking. Just two black sweaters, one pair of black pants and one pair of rust pants, and a few pairs of socks and boxers (you hope they’re clean, they smelled like it, though you don’t understand why Bravat sputtered like an engine when you did a smell check. Weirdo.). The rust pants had chains on them that kind of bothered you, and one of the black sweaters had holes on the sleeves (probably for your thumbs) and holes not actually meant to be fashionable at all (probably torn by some mishaps), which also kind of bothered you, and the other sweater had a thin, neon orange line along the bottom hem. It all kind of bothered you, but these were the plainest things you could find in there, and you’re sure you can fix them somehow one way or another without damaging them in a way he’ll notice.

You stand back up, and he takes that as a sign that your business is done. He closes the chest back up, and this time his sylladex does open, and he does a little cheer that genuinely makes you want to roll your eyes, but you feel like you can’t do it again for the second time in a row.

With the chest gone and your clothes finally obtained, you suppose it’s time you say goodbye, for real this time.

You tilt your head towards him, a polite nod, “Thank you. I’ll bring them back when I’m done.”

Bravat gives you a thumbs up, “No problem! Also, don’t stress, you can have those!”

You tilt your head to the side, “You sure?”

“Ab-so-lutely!”

“Hm. Ok. Have a good evening. Goodbye.”

Just as you get to your door, he yells at you, “Bye, bestie!”

That makes you bristle. You turn to him and glare.

“Not your _bestie_ ,” you say, almost a bit of a hiss, just to get the point across.

Bravat shrugs, laughs, walks to his own door, “Whatever you say, bestie! See you around!”

He disappears into his block, the echo of his laughter left with you, and you’re left stunned before something like apprehension bubbles in you, or is it some weird mix of frustration and fear? Either way, you feel it.

He’s going to be a problem for you, isn’t he? Gogdammit!

You don't need a fool in your life! 

You walk into your block and lean against the door, sliding down to the floor, putting your new clothes in your lap and your hands on your face as your groan, loud and angry.

(Things have gotten a bit more interesting, and that’s dangerous for you. You do _not_ need anything interesting. _At. All._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Slithery Scale-Beast Eating Mutants is the troll version of the game Snake, and one of Karcin's favorites. She often plays free little games to busy herself when she has nothing to do, a habit picked up from her isolation years. The game itself features a white serpentine like beast, which eats little mutants that sort of look like caricatures of Karkat, although you can't quite prove that it's caricatures of him. I've tried to keep in mind that troll culture is exceedingly violent and war-like, as well as heavily reliant on mass amounts of propaganda and society's perceptions being controlled by those higher in power, and therefor, things like pro-violence messages, encouraged genocide against certain lower classes and blood castes, and anti-mutant propaganda is ingrained into even the most silly and mundane things such as a little game. 
> 
> -Karcin is heavily opinionated on things such as class differences, though only when they concern herself for the time being. She does not seem to really care about others, though she certainly does not want to be the direct cause of someone's death. This is why she is not quite exactly bothered by things like violence or death (rather feeling grossed out by it), but shows a hesitancy to hurt or kill others. This duality is shown when she expresses discomfort about taking and owning someone's things if they are likely to be killed soon afterword's, therefor not giving her the chance to get rid of them, but not really caring if Bravat gets hurt for tagging along with her on her search for clothes. 
> 
> -Bravat is taken from the word Bravata, Spanish for Bravado.
> 
> -Bravat himself is an extremely sociable and hyperactive troll, the obligatory sunshine character if you will. 
> 
> -Karcin does not understand what flirting is just yet and mixes it up with a lot of things ranging from bullying to pitying. 
> 
> -Bravat assumes that Karcin is just not interested and instead wants to befriend her, meanwhile Karcin wants to be a lone wolf all together. Basically the "Unwilling Friends But Soon To Be Besties" trope because I love that trope and absolutely had to put it in here.
> 
> -Dentisorcerers are basically dentists who are sometimes allowed to be violent, kind of like a Medislayer but they work with teeth and are not allowed to kill at will as much as the Medislayers. Even though they use science, they're considered magical because they're good with their jobs, fixing any oral problems quick and painlessly, and the trolls like to call their skills "magical". The name started as a joke but was soon picked up and people have been using it since. No one remembers the original name of this particular medical branch except for the older trolls, who do not really bother to correct anyone.
> 
> \- A Grub Lock is the troll version of a Child Lock. Karcin is basically saying that Bravat's sylladex is like one of those child safety lids on pill bottles that your parent AKA your Lusus (or in Bravat's case, spirits) has to open for you. Or like the child lock on a car to keep kids from opening it while you're driving. 
> 
> -Canonically speaking, troll goth is rainbow stuff, not black like a lot of people tend to think. Bravat used to have a troll goth phase. He wants those clothes off his back as soon as possible to avoid further embarrassment. 
> 
> -I'm pretty sure I forgot some stuff so I'll just edit it if I find anything else. Remember to keep an eye out on the chapters and authors notes, folks, I am constantly editing this thing. I post without pre-reading and minimal to no editing most of the time, so this is probably not gonna be the final version of this chapter. The current version you are reading is also probably bad, so lol sorry about that. As always, feel free to ask questions, or just write about whatever you think about this story so far, I love hearing what you guys have to say about this stuff! Kudos are appreciated!


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